Page 71 - Demo

Chapter two 71
The Last of the Druids
(A Poem by James Jefrey Roche)
Conal, last of the Druids, stood by the ruined shrine,
And the ashes were cold on the altar and bitter and gray as brine ;
The sacred grove was deserted, and impious hands had raised
The mystic sign of the stranger where the holy ires had blazed.
He went to the home of his father, and a stranger bade him in
Who knew not the face of Conal nor came of his father’s kin.
For the years were many and changeful since the Druid went afar
From the peaceful land of Ierne to the stormy ields of war.
He had battled with Pict and Briton, Norseman and Hun and Gaul,
When Dathi’s glorious banner waved on the Alpine wall.
And now he was old, and weary of the splendid joy of strife,
And he longed for the Druid cloister and the evening calm of life
“The gods of the brave will bless me for the foes I have slain,”’ he said,
And he turned to the land of Ierne — and they told him the gods were dead! Then he cursed the gods of his fathers, the many who led from one,
And he cursed the priest of the stranger for the thing that he had done.
“I will ind this priest, I will slay him, — let him bide on land or sea,
Though a thousand swords defend him — and the gods shall be shamed by me !” He went to the Court of Tara where the king had housed the priest;
He found him not at the palace, he found him not at the feast.
But down in a lowly hovel, where a man with the Black Death lay,
They told him, “The good priest. Patrick, watches by night and day;
For the man he serves was his foe in the days of his power and pride,
But the pride and the power have left him, and the love of his friends has died; Kith or kin has he none — only one son, gone wild —
And the Black Death’s hand, Christ save us ! would part the mother and child. The boldest soldier in Erin, I warrant ye, would not dare
To watch with old Conn the Druid, in the deadly pest-house there.”